From Loving Perfection to Perfecting Love: A Matter of Acceptance

Many years ago, out of the blue, my girlfriend asked me if I liked her . . . body part. This created an immediate dilemma. I had never really thought about whether I liked it. As far as I was concerned she was a beautiful woman. But once she posed the question, I didn't know what to say. I looked for some standard by which to measure its quality. On a scale of 1 to 10, how did it rate? Should I compare it to a model's? To an athlete's? To an actor's? Needless to say, I made a mess of the moment. Only now do I understand what she was asking.

I recently took a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a secular approach to Buddhist meditation based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR claims that we are perfect the way we are, but at the same time it encourages long lasting change. Initially this appeared to be a hopeless contradiction. Eventually the contradiction resolved into a paradox when I realized that MBSR redefines the term perfect.

The conventional meaning of perfect is "without flaw or blemish." It derives from the Latin perfectus, the past participle of "to finish," and in this sense means "finished," "lacking nothing," "complete." This definition of perfection is based on performance. Anything or anyone who is conventionally perfect has met the highest standards of possible achievement. They've reached a level of excellence that's as good as it gets. They lack nothing in their capacity to realize their goals.

The unconventional meaning of perfect is "worthy of love." This has nothing to do with the etymology of the term and doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But the claim that we are perfect just the way we are means that we are worthy of unconditional love. No matter how flawed or incomplete we may be, we each deserve love because it's a birthright. To be loved, in other words according to this claim, is a right to which we are inherently entitled. We needn't do anything at all to deserve it.

What's stunning about this unconventional definition of perfect is that it quietly undermines an entire way of thinking. It takes a term that describes the performance of the few and revises it to describe the birthright of the many. It takes a term that entails rigorous comparison between contenders and revises it exclude all reference to others. It takes a term that evokes social stratification and revises it to make everyone equally worthy. By redefining the term perfect as "worthy of love," MBSR dismantles the foundation of the paradigm by which value and love are based on achievement.

What it means to be perfect just the way we are is to be worthy of love regardless of achievement. To be worthy, this is to say, of unconditional acceptance, of empathy for our pain, and of compassion for our suffering simply because we are part of humanity. This kind of love is radically inclusive. It holds all people together regardless of difference in a universal embrace of mutual acceptance. This does not however mean that other people must like us, nor does it mean that we must like them. But it does mean that if we could learn to love others we might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow us to live together in relative harmony.

What's true between people is also true for oneself. To accept oneself as perfect just the way one is is to manage to love oneself regardless of achievement. To accept oneself unconditionally, to empathize with one's pain, and to have compassion for one's suffering keeps one together regardless of conflict in a self-sustaining embrace of internal acceptance. This does not mean that one must also like oneself. But it does mean that if one could learn to love oneself one might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow one to live in relative harmony with oneself.

To accept others and ourselves just the way we are is also the best hope for the depth of understanding that makes possible both collective and individual transformation. Only by understanding our differences with others and only by understanding our differences with ourselves is it possible to find practical solutions to conflict. Moreover, when we attend to the differences at play we already put in motion the process of change. This is because attending is a transformative act. By shifting the emphasis from opposition to acceptance, replacing critical judgment with compassionate discernment, the simple act of attending invites new information that generates insight and lays the groundwork for change.

The change that is made possible through total acceptance can lead to greater health, smoother functioning, and more contentment. It can end wars between people and end wars within ourselves. And it can lead to a more vital experience of life. It cannot, however, make us any more or less perfect, at least not in the unconventional sense of the term. Because no matter how much we do or don't change, we are always just as equally entitled to love. This is what it means to be perfect as is. Worthy of love no matter what.

When I look back at that terrible moment years ago when my girlfriend asked suddenly if I liked her body part, I now understand what she really was asking. She was asking if I accepted her just the way she was. Without condition. Without comparison. Without requiring any change. She wasn't asking if I liked her body but rather if I loved her self. I only wish I could have answered, "You're perfect just the way you are." But it has taken me a lifetime to understand what this means.

The Hard Work of Love

In my first semester of grad school in English literature at Harvard I enrolled in a seminar in Renaissance poetry. My professor was an elegant man in his 60s known for his vocabulary, intelligence, and wit. The class had two requirements, a book report and a paper. He delivered his evaluations of each student before the class.

My book report on Christian imagery went very well. He called it "exemplary," and I felt like a star. My paper on Ben Jonson went very badly. The details have faded, but the pain lingers on. I remember him suggesting it was more of a draft.

I was devastated and went to see my professor in his office. I asked him why he humiliated his students in public-- I wasn't the only one in the class he had shamed. He told me he saw Harvard as a cloistered environment. He said it was his duty to prepare his students for the profession by helping them to build up their scar tissue in advance. My internal response was, "Don't do me any favors."

About 10 years ago I heard he had died. Unfortunately, my response wasn't especially yogic. I was delighted and imagined doing a dance on his grave. I hated him then, and I hate him now.

And yet, the only hope for me is to to love my professor. It's hard to believe that anyone so sadistic hasn't been the victim of sadism himself. I take his cruelty to his students as a gauge of the cruelty done to him. The profession -- or life -- left its scars on his heart.

Loving my professor means accepting him completely, empathizing with his pain, and feeling compassion for his suffering. To the extent that I hate him I begin to resemble him. And to the extent that I resemble him I lose my humanity. The choice is very clear: to cultivate hatred and perpetuate trauma or to cultivate love and generate healing.

This is not in any way to deny his brutality. Nor is it a roundabout way to excuse it. It is, nevertheless, a plea to explain it. And in order to explain it I must understand it. I cannot do this effectively if I push him away, if I resist his perspective, or if I prematurely judge him. I cannot do this effectively without acceptance, empathy, and compassion. I cannot do this effectively without the openness of love.

It is also not to suggest that I must tolerate abuse -- regardless of how much pain my abuser has suffered. On the contrary, it's essential to do what I can to protect myself. But protecting myself from abuse does not entail hatred. To love those who hate me and also to protect myself. This is the way to retain my humanity.

And so the work before me is to cultivate love -- while doing whatever is necessary for protection. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to all beings no matter how great their capacity for hatred. This goes beyond my grad school professor to include every person who is capable of this feeling.

As far as I can tell, this includes everyone. It includes Hussein, Milosovich, Pol Pot, and Hitler. It includes my employers, therapists, teachers, and colleagues. It includes my parents, sister, partners, and friends. And, most importantly, it includes myself. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to us all. That is truly the hard work of love.

The Meaning of Love: Acceptance, Empathy, and Compassion

In the movie Dead Man Walking, Sean Penn plays Matthew Poncelet, a white supremacist who's been sentenced to death. Susan Sarandon plays Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who petitions the court on his behalf. Though she initially believes that Poncelet is innocent, by the end she recognizes that he's guilty of murder. And yet, she continues to love him completely. He's a murderer, and she loves him. How can this be?

Something changed in me when I saw Dead Man Walking. I saw that it's possible to love another person even if you don't like the terrible things they do. Before I saw the movie I thought you earned love. Afterwards, I realized that love is a birthright.

It took becoming a therapist for me to apply this. I learned to accept my patients completely as they are. I learned to try to see the world through their eyes. And I learned to have compassion for their suffering and pain. In other words, I learned to love them as fellow humans doing the best they can with the resources they have.

This doesn't mean that I don't worry about their actions. I often feel concerned about the choices they make, the harm they sometimes do both to others and to themselves. Undereating, overeating, purging, abusing drugs, obsessing, checking compulsively, driving recklessly, and being promiscuous. But these destructive actions don't make me dislike them. They demonstrate how much my patients are suffering and the lengths to which they'll go in order to survive.

When I think about why I love my patients this way, I realize it's because this is how my therapist loved me. She accepted me, she empathized with me, and she radiated compassion. No matter what I did to keep things together.

My experience in therapy taught me how to love. To love my patients. To love my students. To love my family. To love my friends. It even layed the groundwork for me to love myself. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to everyone. A task that it certainly easier said than done.

As with Sister Prejean, it doesn't mean we deny the truth. Nor does it mean we don't condemn, convict, and punish. But it does mean that we separate the doer from the deed and remember that we all deserve to be loved. No matter how terrible the crimes we commit. No matter what we're willing to do to survive.

The Challenge of Love

I picked up a man from the street, and he was eaten up alive with worms, and nobody could stand near him he was smelling so badly. I went to him to clean him, and he said, "Why you do this?" And I said, "Because I love you." -- Mother Teresa (Mother Teresa, 1986 Documentary)

I've been thinking a lot about love in recent weeks. What it means to love. What it means to be loved. You'd think it would be obvious. But it's strangely elusive. Only now can I recognize it. Only now can I attempt it.

Unfortunately, I've always confused liking with loving. I've mistakenly assumed that they were points on a line. That loving was a matter of liking times ten. But I'm finally realizing that this isn't the case. That liking and loving aren't related at all.

A survey of any date site tells us all about liking. It's amazing to see what people like in their mates. Intellectual, biker, atheist, religious, conservative, liberal, hippy, clean cut. These qualities all have one thing in common. They are based on idiosyncratic, individual taste.

But love has nothing to do with our taste. Where taste locates difference, love finds identity. Where taste pulls apart, love brings together. And where taste creates strata, love evens out. To like is to discriminate between qualities based on taste. To love, on the other hand, is completely to accept.

But what are we completely accepting with love? On one level, it is the qualities we dislike in other people. The fear, helplessness, and panic that seize our partner is a clutch. The greed, envy, and brutality that emerge when they fail. But on a deeper level we are accepting those same qualities in ourselves. Our capacity as human beings to have feelings we despise. Our capacity as human beings to commit acts we cannot speak.

In fact, one might say that it's our discomfort with ourselves, with our capacity for unconscionable feelings and acts, that lies at the root of our discomfort with others. We invariably hate in others what we hate in ourselves. And we can only love others when we completely accept ourselves.

To accept ourselves completely is to accept our humanity. That all people, as people, have the capacity for evil. That all people, as people, have the capacity for good. That we can all commit murder. And we can all save a life. That we can all be oppressors. And we can all be oppressed. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to bring together. Makes it possible to even out. Makes it possible to accept. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to love -- even when we don't like some of the qualities we embrace.

This is what Mother Teresa so deeply understood. That she was the worm eaten man on the street. That she was the savior who gave him to eat.

And the benefit of cultivating the capacity to love? An acceptance of self and an acceptance of other that creates the conditions in which compassion can arise. It is only through compassion that we are able to explore. Only through exploration that we are able to discover. Only through discovery that we are able to understand. And only through understanding that we are able to resolve.

Love, it turns out, makes it possible to find peace. Peace with our enemies. And peace with ourselves. This is my hope for the new year.